‘This is your mother.’ Under the title of Help of Christians, Mary was chosen as Patroness of Australasia by the First Provincial Synod, convened by Archbishop Bede Polding, in Sydney in 1844. The fledgling colonies needed Mary’s help at that time, as the nation does today. We are helped through Mary’s powerful intercession, and through the example of her life that we find in the Gospels. See also the article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

Other saints: Blessed Louis-Zépherin Moreau (1824 - 1901)

Canada

He was bishop of the St Hyacinthe diocese in Quebec for 25 years, from 1876 until his death.

Other saints: St Aldhelm

Clifton, Plymouth

Aldhelm became a monk at Malmesbury, but completed his education at Canterbury. In about 675 he became Abbot of Malmesbury, and made foundations at Frome and Bradford-on-Avon. When the Wessex diocese was divided in 705 he became the first bishop of its western half, Sherborne, without ceasing to rule the abbey at Malmesbury.

He was renowned for his learning and sanctity. He wrote both prose and verse, and set his verse to music. Finding the people of his time somewhat dilatory in their church attendance, it is said that he would stand up in public places, singing songs and preaching sermons to attract people to the faith. His Old English verse, sung with harp accompaniment, has not survived, so we can judge this Anglo-Saxon writer only by his Latin works. It is thought that he invented the crossword puzzle. He died at Doulting near Wells in Somerset, and was buried at Malmesbury. His cult was discontinued by Lanfranc, but Osmund authorised its resumption with the translation of his relics in 1078.

About the author of the Second Reading in today's Office of Readings:

Second Reading: Saint Columbanus, Abbot (540? - 615)

Columbanus was born in Ireland before the middle of the sixth century. He was a monk from his youth and was learned in both sacred and secular literature. At the age of 45 he left Ireland and went to Europe, where he founded three monasteries in what is now France. His monastic rule was strict, based on Irish practice.

King Thierry II of Burgundy had a veneration for Columbanus and often visited him. Columbanus’s criticisms of Thierry’s debauched living and practice of concubinage enraged the king’s grandmother Brunhild, and eventually Columbanus and all other Irish-born monks were ordered to be deported to Ireland. They eluded their captors, and after an unsuccessful attempt to evangelize the pagan tribes near modern-day Zürich they reached Italy, where Columbanus founded the monastery at Bobbio. He died there in 615.

Columbanus’s writings are among the earliest evidence of Irish knowledge of Latin. His style combines an underlying passion with a strong and rhythmic rhetorical structure.

Liturgical colour: green

The theological virtue of hope is symbolized by the colour green, just as the burning fire of love is symbolized by red. Green is the colour of growing things, and hope, like them, is always new and always fresh. Liturgically, green is the colour of Ordinary Time, the season in which we are being neither especially penitent (in purple) nor overwhelmingly joyful (in white).

The single nation, mine, is Israel, those who cried out to God and were saved. Yes, the Lord has saved his people, the Lord has delivered us from all these evils, God has worked such signs and great wonders as have never happened among the nations.